According to African-American comedienne Moms Mabley, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” Sounds like Moms could have been talking about conditions leading up to this past August melee in north Minneapolis. Once again, primarily white cops, who mostly live outside Minneapolis, confronted primarily black people who live mostly on Minneapolis’ economic and social fringe, in a stand-off that culminated in gunshots and mayhem.
In the early 1990s, Minnesota legislators gave Minneapolis the right to require its police officers to live in Minneapolis. North Minneapolis legislator Richard Jefferson led the charge, noting that at the time, three out of four of the city’s cops called somewhere other than Minneapolis home. The Minneapolis Police Federation went ballistic, vowing to get the residency rule repealed. Eventually, the cops got their way.
Since more Minneapolis police than ever live outside the city, one should not be surprised if many Minneapolitans view the police as an occupying force—modern-day mercenaries who live one place and take money to fight battles somewhere else. If Minneapolis again required its police to live in the city, many would probably end up in the city’s last bastion of affordable housing, the North Side (given Minneapolis’ pricey real estate and the average income of rank-and-file cops). I don’t care what the police federation may say. Having the police patrol neighborhoods where they live will make a difference. Even Minneapolis police chief Robert Olson agrees that having Minneapolis cops live in the community that pays them would be “good policy.” Imagine how differently the August fracas might have played out, had police lived on that block. If cops lived in the neighborhood, they would not need Spike Moss to predict the pending collision of the fan and the stinky stuff. They could feel the pulse of the neighborhood in a way that a carpetbagging cop can not.
Having more cops live in north Minneapolis is only a piece of preventing future blowups. We also need to make it easier for people to get low-level crimes expunged from their records. A criminal history is an automatic disqualifier for most decent jobs and housing.
Too many people of color, particularly young African-American males, are carrying around convictions for minor crimes that keep them mired in dead-end futures. This point was driven home to me recently by the plight of a former client who struggled to get a decent job and an apartment because of a disorderly conduct conviction. After having many doors slammed in her face, she finally got a job at a local convenience store owned by a well-known petroleum company. In her application, she admitted to the conviction. She worked hard and made it into the management training program. A few months later, someone in the company’s human resources department “discovered” they had hired a “criminal.” Despite her blemish-free job performance, they canned her. So much for a fresh start.
The Minnesota legislature should create a system that records low-level crimes (such as disorderly conduct and small property crimes) much as we do credit histories. Many of us have had credit missteps in the past. No matter how bad the pile of doo-doo we may have stepped in, even bankruptcy gets erased after so many years. Our capitalist culture understands that the system will work much better if more people do not worry that past credit mistakes will forever bar them from getting car loans and house mortgages. Minnesotans need to have the same pragmatic approach, allowing people to wipe their criminal slate clean. Now, I am not proposing that convicted murderers, rapists, and major drug dealers get this fresh-start deal—only “entry level” crimes. And I would require those seeking expungement to do things such as get a high school diploma, stay clean and sober, and avoid any further criminal adventures.
Keeping the peace on the North Side will require Minneapolis to do business differently. We need cops whose heads, hearts, and paychecks come home to the community they serve. And we need to give people living on the edge a fighting chance to turn their lives around by making it easier to clean up their petty criminal records. Without the stability and hope these actions provide, Minneapolis will continue to prove Moms right.
Clinton Collins Jr. is a Minneapolis lawyer and ABC Radio commentator. His email address is ccollins@collins lawfirm.com.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply